Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development Part 30

The early promise for the growth of Unitarianism in the south, from 1825 to 1840, failed because there was no background of tradition for its encouragement and support. Individuals could think their way into the Unitarian faith, but their influence proved ineffective when all around them the old tradition prevailed as stubborn conviction. Even the influence of a literature pervaded with Unitarianism proved ineffective in securing any rapid spread of the new faith, except as it has found its way into the common Christian tradition by a process of spiritual infiltration. The result has been that Unitarianism has grown slowly, because it has been obliged to create new traditions, to form a new habit of thought, and to make free inquiry a common motive and purpose.

In a word, Unitarianism has been a heresy; and therefore there has been no open door for it. Most heretical sects have been narrow in spirit, bigoted in temper, and intensely sectarian in method. Their isolation from the great currents of the world's life acts on them intellectually and spiritually as the process of in-and-in breeding does upon animals: it intensifies their peculiarities and defects. A process of atrophy or degeneration takes place; and they grow from generation to generation more isolated, sectarian, and peculiar. Unitarianism has escaped this tendency because it has accepted the modern spirit and because to a large degree its adherents have been educated and progressive persons. Its principles of liberty, reason, and free inquiry, have brought its followers into touch with those forces that are making most rapidly for the development of mankind. Unitarians have been conspicuously capable of individual initiative; and yet their culture has been large enough to give them a conservative loyalty to the past and to the profounder and more spiritual phases of the Christian tradition. While strongly individualistic and heretical they have been st.u.r.dily faithful to Christianity, seeking to revive its earlier and more simple life.

A chief value of Unitarianism in the past has been that it has pioneered the way for the development of the modern spirit within the limits of Christianity. The churches from which it came out have followed it far on the way it has travelled. Its most liberal advocates of the first generation were more conservative than many of the leaders are to-day in the older churches. Its period of criticism, controversy, and agitation is being reproduced in many another religious body of the present time. The debates about miracles, the theory of the supernatural, the authenticity of Scripture, the nature of Christ, and other problems that are now agitating most of the progressive Protestant denominations, are almost precisely those that exercised Unitarians years ago. The only final solution of these problems, that will give peace and harmony, is that of free inquiry and rational interpretation, which Unitarians have finally accepted. If other religious bodies would profit by this experience and by the Unitarian method for the solution of these problems, it would be greatly to their advantage.

The Unitarian churches have been few in number, and they have suffered from isolation and provincialism. These defects of the earlier period have now in part pa.s.sed away, new traditions have been created, a cosmopolitan spirit has been developed, and Unitarianism has become a world movement.

This was conspicuously indicated at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the organization of the American Unitarian a.s.sociation, and in the formation of The International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers. It was then shown that Unitarianism has found expression in many parts of the world, that it answers to an intellectual and spiritual need of the time, and that it is capable of interpreting the religious convictions of persons belonging to many phases of human development and culture. A broader, more philosophical, and humaner tradition is being formed, that will in time become a wide-reaching influence for the development of a religious life that will be at once more scientific and more spiritual in its nature than anything the past has produced.

The promise of Unitarianism for the future does not consist in its becoming a sect and in its striving for the development of merely denominational interests, but in its cultivation of the deeper spiritual life and in its cosmopolitan sympathy with all phases of religious growth. Its mission is one with philanthropy, charity, and altruism. Its att.i.tude should be that of free inquiry, loyalty to the spirit of philosophy and science, and fidelity to the largest results of human progress. It should always represent justice, righteousness, and personal integrity. That promise is not to be found in the rapid multiplication of its churches or in its devotion to propagandist aims, but in its loyalty to the free spirit and in its exemplification of the worth and beauty of the religion of humanity. As a sect, it will fail; but as a movement towards a larger faith, a purer life, and a more inclusive fellowship, the future is on its side.

While recognizing the Unitarian as a great pioneer movement in religion, it should be seen that its strong individualism has been a cause of its slow growth. Until recently the Unitarian body has been less an organic phase of the religious life of the time than a group of isolated churches held together only by the spontaneous bonds of fellowship and good will. Such a body can have little effective force in any effort at missionary propagandism or in making its spirit dominant in the religious life of the country. As heredity and variation are but two phases of organic growth, so are tradition and individual initiative but two phases of social progress.

In both processes--organic growth and social progress--the primary force is the conservative one, that maintains what the past has secured. If individualism is necessary to healthy growth, a.s.sociative action is essential to any growth whatever of the social body. In so far as individual perfection can be attained, it cannot be by seeking it as an end in itself: it can be reached only by means of that which conduces to general social progress.

It may be questioned whether there is any large future for Unitarianism unless all excessive individualism is modified and controlled. Such individualism is in opposition to the altruistic and a.s.sociative spirit of the present time. Liberty is not an end in itself, but its value is to be found in the opportunity it gives for a natural and fitting a.s.sociation of individuals with each other. Freedom of religious inquiry is but an instrument for securing spiritual growth, not merely for the individual, but for all mankind. So long as liberty of thought and spiritual freedom remain the means of individual gratification, they are ineffective as spiritual forces. They must be given a wider heritage in the life of mankind before they can accomplish their legitimate results in securing for men freedom from the external bonds of traditionalism. Even reason is but an instrument for securing truth, and not truth itself.

Rightly understood, authority in the church is but the principle of social action, respect for what mankind has gained of spiritual power through its centuries of development. Authority is therefore as necessary as freedom, and the two must be reconciled in order that progress may take place. When so understood and so limited, authority becomes essential to all growth in freedom and individuality. What above all else is needed in religion is social action on the part of freedom-loving men and women, who, in the strength of their individuality, co-operate for the attainment, not of their own personal good, but the advancement of mankind. This is what Unitarianism has striven for, and what it has gained in some measure. It has sought to make philanthropy the test of piety, and to make liberty a means of social fidelity.

Free inquiry cannot mean liberty to think as one pleases, but only to think the truth, and to recognize with submissive spirit the absolute conditions and the limitations of the truth. Though religion is life and not a creed, it none the less compels the individual to loyalty of social action; and that means nothing more and nothing less than faithfulness to what will make for the common good, and not primarily what will minister to one's own personal development, intellectually and spiritually.

The future of Unitarianism will depend on its ability further to reconcile, individualism with a.s.sociative action, the spirit of free inquiry with the larger human tradition. Its advantage cannot be found in the abandonment of Christianity, which has been the source and sustaining power of its life, but in the development of the Christian tradition by the processes of modern thought. The real promise of Unitarianism is in identifying itself with the altruistic spirit of the age, and in becoming the spiritual interpreter of the social aspirations of mankind. In order to this result it must not only withdraw from its extreme individualism, but bring its liberty into organic relations with its spirit of social fidelity. It will then welcome the fact that freedom and authority are identical in their deeper meanings. It will discover that service is more important than culture, and that culture is of value to the end that service may become more effective. Then it will cheerfully recognize the truth that the social obligation is as important as the individual right, and that the two make the rounded whole of human action.

[1] See pp. 131, 328.

APPENDIX.

A. FORMATION OF THE LOCAL CONFERENCES.

The local conferences came into existence in the following order: Wisconsin and Minnesota Quarterly Conference, organized at Sheboygan, Wis., October 24, 1866; New York Central Conference of Liberal Christians, Rochester, November 21, 1866; Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches of the Middle and Southern States, Wilmington, Del., November 22, 1866; Norfolk Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Dedham, Ma.s.s., November 28, 1866; New York and Hudson River Local Conference, New York, December 6, 1866; Ess.e.x Conference of Liberal Christian Churches, Salem, Ma.s.s., December 11, 1866; Lake Erie Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Societies, Meadville, Penn., December 11, 1866; Worcester County Conference of Congregational (Unitarian) and Other Christian Societies, Worcester, Ma.s.s., December 12, 1866; South Middles.e.x Conference of Congregational Unitarian and Other Christian Societies, Cambridgeport, Ma.s.s., December 12, 1866; Suffolk Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Boston, December 17, 1866; North Middles.e.x Conference of Unitarian Congregational and Other Christian Churches, Littleton, Ma.s.s., December 18, 1866.

The Champlain Liberal Christian Conference, Montpelier, Vt., January 9, 1867; the Connecticut Valley Conference of Congregational Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Greenfield, Ma.s.s., January 16, 1867; the Plymouth and Bay Conference, Hingham, Ma.s.s., February 5, 1867; the Ohio Valley Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Louisville, Ky., February 22, 1867; the Channing Conference, Providence, R.I., April 17, 1867; Liberal Christian Conference of Western Maine, Brunswick, Me., October 22, 1867.

The Local Conference of Liberal Christians of the Missouri Valley, Weston, Mo., March 18, 1868; the Chicago Conference of Unitarian Churches, Chicago, December 2, 1868; Western Illinois and Iowa Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Sheffield, Ill., January 28, 1869; Cape Cod Conference of Unitarian Congregational and Other Liberal Christian Churches, Barnstable, Ma.s.s., November 30, 1870; Conference of Liberal Christians of the Missouri Valley, Kansas City, Mo., May 3, 1871; Michigan Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Jackson, October 21, 1875; the Fraternity of Illinois Liberal Christian Societies, Bloomington, November 11, 1875; Iowa a.s.sociation of Unitarian and Other Independent Churches, Burlington, June 1, 1877; Indiana Conference of Unitarian and Independent Religious Societies, Hobart, October 1, 1878; Ohio State Conference of Unitarian and Other Liberal Societies, Cincinnati, May, 1879.

Kansas Unitarian Conference, December 2, 1880; Nebraska Unitarian a.s.sociation, Omaha, November 9, 1882; the Southern Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Atlanta, Ga., April 24, 1884; the New York Conference of Unitarian Churches superseded the New York and Hudson River Conference at a session held in New York, April 29, 1885; Pacific Unitarian Conference, San Francisco, November 2, 1885; the Illinois Conference of Unitarian and Other Independent Societies superseded the Illinois Fraternity in 1885; Minnesota Unitarian Conference, St. Paul, November 17, 1887; Hanc.o.c.k Conference of Unitarian and Other Christian Churches, Bar Harbor, Me., August 8, 1889; Missouri Valley Unitarian Conference superseded the Kansas Unitarian Conference, December 2, 1889.

Rocky Mountain Conference of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Churches, Denver, Col., May 17, 1890; the Unitarian Conference of the Middle States and Canada, Brooklyn, N.Y., November 19, 1890, superseded New York State Conference; Central States Conference of Unitarian Churches, Cincinnati, December 9, 1891, superseded the Ohio State Conference; Pacific Northwest Conference of Unitarian, Liberal Christian, and Independent Churches, Puyallup, Wash., August 1, 1892; Southern California Conference of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Churches, Santa Ana, October 1892.

Four of the early conferences, the New York Central, Champlain, Western Maine, and Missouri Valley, were not distinctly Unitarian. These were union organizations, in which Universalists, and perhaps other denominations, were a.s.sociated with Unitarians. The New York Central Conference refused to send delegates to the National Conference on account of its union character. In other conferences, such as the Connecticut Valley and the Norfolk, Universalists took part in their organization, and were for a number of years connected with them.

Most of the conferences organized from 1875 to 1885 were within state limits; but those organized subsequently to 1885 were more distinctly district conferences, and included several states. Several of the conferences have been reorganized in order to bring them into harmony with the prevailing theory of state or district limits at the time when such action took place. A few of the conferences had only a name to live, and they soon pa.s.sed out of existence.

In the local, as in the National Conference, two purposes contended for expression, the one looking to the uniting of all liberal denominations in one general organization, and the other to the promotion of distinctly Unitarian interests. In the National Conference the denominational purpose controlled the aims kept most clearly in view; but the other purpose found expression in the addition of "Other Christian Churches" to the name, though only in the most limited way did such churches connect themselves with the conference. The local conferences made like provision for those not wishing to call themselves distinctly Unitarian. Such desire for co-operation, however, was in a large degree rendered ineffective by the fact that the primary aim had in view in the creation of the local conferences was the increase of the funds of the American Unitarian a.s.sociation.

B. UNITARIAN NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.

There was a very considerable activity from 1825 to 1850 in the publication of Unitarian periodicals, and probably the energies of the denomination found a larger expression in that direction than in any other.

In January, 1827, was begun in Boston The Liberal Preacher, a monthly publication of sermons by living ministers, conducted by the Cheshire a.s.sociation of Ministers, with Rev. Thomas R. Sullivan, of Keene, N.H., as the editor. It was continued for eight or ten years, and with considerable success.

With November, 1827, Rev. William Ware began the publication in New York City of The Unitarian, a quarterly magazine, of which the last number appeared February 15, 1828.

The Unitarian Monitor was begun at Dover, N.H., October 1, 1831, and was continued until October 10, 1833. It was a fortnightly of four three-column pages, and was well conducted. It was under the editorial management of Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, then the minister in Dover.

The Unitarian Christian, edited by Rev. Stephen G. Bulfinch, was published quarterly in Augusta, Ga., for a year or two.

In 1823 Rev. Samuel J. May published The Liberal Christian at Brooklyn, Conn., as a fortnightly county paper of eight small quarto pages. He followed it by The Christian Monitor and Common People's Adviser, which was begun in April, 1832, its object being "to promote the free discussion of all subjects connected with happiness and holiness."

The Unitarian, conducted by Rev. Bernard Whitman, then settled in Waltham, Ma.s.s., was published in Cambridge and Boston during the year 1834, and came to its end because of the death of Whitman in the last month of the year.

It was a monthly magazine of a distinctly missionary character.

Of a more permanent character was The Unitarian Advocate, the first number of which was issued in Boston, January, 1828. It was a small 12mo of sixty pages, monthly, the editor being Rev. Edmund Q. Sewall. He continued in that capacity to the end of 1829, when it was "conducted by an a.s.sociation of gentlemen." The purpose was to make a popular magazine at a moderate price. It came to an end in December, 1832.

With January 1, 1835, was issued in Boston the first number of The Boston Observer and Religious Intelligencer, a weekly of eight three-column pages, edited by Rev. George Ripley. It was continued for only six months, when it was joined to The Christian Register, which took its name as a sub-t.i.tle for a time. Its motto, "Liberty, Holiness, Love," was also borrowed by that paper.

The Western Messenger was begun in Cincinnati, June, 1835, with Rev.

Ephraim Peabody as the editor. It was a monthly of ninety-six pages, and was ably edited. Owing to the illness of Mr. Peabody, it was removed to Louisville after the ninth number; and Rev. James Freeman Clarke became the editor, with Rev. W.H. Channing and Rev. J.H. Perkins as a.s.sistants for a time. It was published by the Western Unitarian a.s.sociation, and was discontinued with the number for May, 1841. Among the contributors were Emerson, Margaret Fuller, William Henry Channing, Christopher P. Cranch, William G. Eliot, who aided in giving it a high literary character. For a number of years the American Unitarian a.s.sociation made an annual appropriation to aid in its publication.

The Monthly Miscellany of Religion and Letters was begun in Boston with April, 1839. It was a 12mo of forty-eight pages, monthly. The editor was Rev. Ezra S. Gannett, by whom it was "designed to furnish religious reading for the people, treat Unitarian opinions in their practical bearings, and show their power to produce holiness of life; and by weight of contents to come between The Christian Register and The Christian Examiner." It was continued until the end of 1843, when it was absorbed by the latter periodical.

With the first of January, 1844, was begun The Monthly Religious Magazine, to meet the needs of those who found The Christian Examiner too scholarly.

The first editor, was Rev. Frederic D. Huntington, who was succeeded by Rev. Edmund H. Sears, Rev. James W. Thompson, Rev. Rufus Ellis, and Rev.

John H. Morison. The last issue was that of February, 1874.

A large weekly was begun in Boston, January 7, 1843, called The Christian World, of which Rev. George G. Channing was the publisher and managing editor. He was a.s.sisted by Rev. James Freeman Clarke and Hon. John A.

Andrew, afterward Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, as editors or editorial contributors. The special aims of the paper were "to awaken a deeper religious interest in all the great philanthropic and benevolent enterprises of the day." It was continued until December 30, 1848. George G. Channing was a brother of Dr. Channing, and was settled over two or three parishes. The paper was ably conducted, and while Unitarian was not distinctly denominational.

The Christian Inquirer was started in New York, October 17, 1846, and was a weekly of four six-column pages. It was managed by the New York Unitarian a.s.sociation; and it was largely under the control of Rev. Henry W. Bellows, who in 1850 was a.s.sisted by Rev. Samuel Osgood, Rev. James F. Clarke, and Rev. Frederic H. Hedge.

In 1846 was begun the publication of the Unitarian Annual Register in Boston by Crosby & Nichols, with Rev. Abiel A. Livermore, then settled in Keene, N.H., as the editor. In 1851 the work came under the control of the American Unitarian a.s.sociation, and as the Year Book of the denomination it was edited by the secretary or his a.s.sistant. From 1860 to 1869 the Year Book was issued as a part of the December number of The Monthly Journal of the American Unitarian a.s.sociation.

The Bible Christian was begun in 1847 at Toronto by Rev. John Cordner, the minister there, and was continued as a semi-monthly for a brief period.

The Unitarian and Foreign Religious Miscellany was published in Boston during 1847, with Rev. George E. Ellis as the editor. It was a monthly magazine devoted to the explanation and defence of Unitarian Christianity; and its contents were mostly selected from the English Unitarian periodicals, especially The Prospective Review, The Monthly Reformer, Bible Christian, The Unitarian, and The Inquirer.

During this period The Christian Examiner had its largest influence upon the denomination, and came to an end. Its scholarship and its liberality made it of interest to only a limited const.i.tuency, and the publisher was compelled to discontinue it at the end of 1869 from lack of adequate support. It was edited from the beginning by the ablest men. Rev. James Walker and Rev. Francis W.P. Greenwood became the editors in 1831, Rev.

William Ware taking the place of Dr. Walker in 1837. From 1844 to 1849 Rev.

Ezra S. Gannett and Rev. Alvan Lamson were the editors, and they were succeeded by Rev. George Putnam and Rev. George E. Ellis. In July, 1857, Rev. Frederic H. Hedge and Rev. Edward E. Hale became the editors, and continued until 1861. Then the editorship was a.s.sumed by Rev. Thomas B.